Thursday, August 20, 2009

Shah Rukh Khan, the immensely popular Bollywood actor, found himself subjected to detention and "routine inspection" at a New Jersey airport this week despite being, we're told, a "very welcome guest" in the US. After initially complaining of his "anger" and "humiliation" over the 70-minute detention, Khan downplayed the incident by labelling his "routine security measure" an "unfortunate procedure". Similarly Timothy Roemer, the US ambassador to India, went into damage-control mode by assuring the billions of Khan fans worldwide that "Many Americans love his films." Maybe Roemer should also disclose the extent to which racial profiling and exaggerated security screening take place in the US for its darker and more ethnic citizens with "Muslim" surnames. Racial profiling: America’s color-coded terror alert - Wajahat Ali

The author of a new biography of Imran Khan claims that the cricketer-turned-politician was romantically involved with late former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto when both of them studied together at Oxford University. In his book, Christopher Sandford writes that Bhutto became infatuated with Khan, and the pair enjoyed a "close" and possibly "sexual" relationship. The author has also alleged that Khan's mother even tried to organise an arranged marriage between the pair, but to no avail. It was believed that Khan and Bhutto had always been at loggerheads, both politically and personally. In fact, Khan openly criticised the former prime minister just days before her death. But Sandford, who interviewed both Khan and his ex-wife Jemima for the book, claimed that a source told him that Bhutto was 21, and in her second year of reading politics at Lady Margaret Hall, when she became close to Khan in 1975. Imran Khan, Benazir Bhutto were an item, claims book